Waymo is bringing its self-driving cars to Virginia

Self-driving cars are not However, he is allowed to work in Virginia. But Alphabet-owned Waymo began moving its cars into the state last week, a Waymo representative told Virginia officials, mapping Arlington and Alexandria, in the northern part of the state.

For most self-driving car companies, mapping, or creating highly accurate, sensor-assisted digital representations of streets and surrounding features, is the first step required to launch a local robo-taxi service. Waymo says drivers will operate the mapping vehicles for the time being.

Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher confirmed the move to WIRED and called it “an important preparatory step if the Commonwealth allows fully autonomous driving.” However, he said the company “currently has no plans to offer commercial service there.”

At a public meeting last week with a Virginia Department of Transportation working group, Rich Harrington, a Waymo policy advisor, said Waymo vehicles landed in Alexandria and will soon arrive in Arlington, both across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Going from mapping to full robotaxi service takes 12 to 18 months and “a lot of money,” he told state government officials. Waymo briefed local officials before the move, Harrington said. (Ellen Kamilakis, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said the agency was unable to respond to WIRED’s request by press time.)

The Virginia Self-Driving Task Force is working to understand how policymakers can craft regulations for self-driving vehicles in the state. The state Senate is currently considering a bill to create a path for autonomous vehicles to be licensed to carry passengers or paid goods. However, the bill’s sponsor — state Senator Saddam Saleem — does not expect to allow self-driving cars to operate there before 2028, he told local newspaper Arlington Now.

The mapping efforts are a testament to Waymo’s sprawling, global ambition, and a test of its lobbying power. The company currently carries paid passengers on 11 U.S. metros and completes about 500,000 trips each week. It is expanding the service to 20 more cities, including London and Tokyo. Twenty-seven US states currently allow self-driving taxis to be deployed on public roads, with five other states – including Virginia, neighboring Washington, D.C. – allowing driverless taxis to be tested.

But Waymo has also faced fierce opposition in a few majority-blue states and cities, where lawmakers and labor unions have expressed concern about the job impacts of self-driving cars. Suspicions spread to places around Virginia. A bill that would have allowed self-driving car companies to transport passengers failed to pass through the Maryland legislature last month. A D.C. bill that would allow self-driving vehicles on public roads but create unique permits and fees for them is under consideration by the City Council. In 2025, Waymo announced its intention to launch service in Baltimore and D.C., but a year later, timelines for those operations remain unclear.

Waymo’s current services are not without speed bumps. Last week, the company temporarily suspended operations in cities across Texas, Tennessee and Georgia, all of which faced storms and flooding. Earlier this month, the company recalled software related to the behavior of its vehicles on flooded roads, and said its commuter service would temporarily avoid operating on flooded high-speed routes. The company is developing the “ultimate cure” for this problem, it told federal regulators.

Despite the setbacks, the company is “actively working” to bring its service to Washington, D.C., Teicher said in a written statement, and is “continuing to lay the foundation for service in Baltimore.”

Eventually, laws may allow passengers to ride driverless across the entire DMV. However, for now, the presence of cars, even if manually driven, may have a silver lining for Waymo: its cars are being put in front of national policymakers, who are currently considering laws that might make it easier to introduce the radical in more places.